was fairly under cover. Still she knew not but that she was seen, and perhaps followed, as well as watched. The spy might arrest her at the very moment when she was most hopeful of her object. How to guard against this danger? How to attain the necessary security? The question was no sooner formed than answered. Her way lay through a wilderness of leaves. The silent droppings from the trees for many years had accumulated around her, and their constant crinkling beneath her tread, drawing her notice to this source of fear, suggested to her the means of safety. There had not been a rain for many weeks. The earth was parched with thirst. The drought had driven the sap from shrub and plant; and just below, on the very route taken by the pursuing party, a natural meadow, a long, thin strip, the seat of a bayou or lake long since dried up, was covered with a rank forest of broom-grass, parched and dried by the sun. The wind was fresh, and driving right below. To one familiar with the effect of firing the woods in a southern country under such circumstances, the idea which possessed the mind of our heroine was almost intuitive. She immediately stole back to the house, her eagerness finding wings, which, however, did not betray her caution. The sentinels of Dunbar kept easy watch, but she had not been unseen. The cool, deliberate tory had more than once fitted his finger to the trigger of his horseman’s pistol, as he beheld the approach toward him of the shrouded figure. But he was not disposed to show himself, or to give the alarm before he could detect the objects of his unknown visiter. Her return to the house was not beheld. He had lost sight of her in the woods, and fancied her still to be in the neighborhood. Unable to recover his clue, he still maintained his position waiting events. It was not long before she reappeared upon the scene. He did not see the figure, until it crossed an open space, on his right, in the direction of the river. He saw it stoop to the earth, and he then bounded forward. His haste was injurious to his objects. He fell over the prostrate trunk of a pine, which had been thrown down for ranging timber only a few days before, and lay dark, with all its bark upon it, in the thick cover of the grass. His pistol went off in his fall, and before he could recover his feet, he was confounded to find himself threatened by a rapid rushing forest of flame, setting directly toward him. For a moment, the sudden blaze blinded him, and when he opened his eyes fully upon surrounding objects, he saw nothing human—nothing but the great dark shafts of pine, beneath which the fire was rushing with the roar and volume of swollen billows of the sea, breaking upon the shore which they promised to engulf. To save himself, to oppose fire to fire, or pass boldly through the flame where it burned most feebly, was now a first necessity; and we leave him to extricate himself as he may, while we follow the progress of Frederica Sabb.